Commanding means for lift doors and the like



J. M. LEON March 27, 1934.

COMMANDING MEANS FOR LIFT DOORS AND THE LIKE Filed April 13, 1932 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 XX M INVENTOR. J 77?. Leon. BY m% A TTORNEYS.

J. M. LEON March 27, 1934.

COMMANDING MEANS FOR LIFT DOORS AND THE LIKE 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Apriln 13. 1952 INVEN TOR. J/7Z Ze /2 BY MW A TTORNEYS.

March 27, 1934. J, LEO'N' 1,952,555

COMMANDING MEANS FOR LIFT DOORS AND THE LIKE Filed April 13, 1932 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR. u 77?. Leon 7 Patented Mar. 27, 1934 PATENT OFFICE COIVMANDING MEANS FOR LIFT DOORS AND THE LI Jos Manuel Leon, Buenos Aires, Argentina Application April 13, 1932, Serial No. 605,108

4 Claims.

The present invention relates to improvements in operators for elevator and the like doors, its essential object being the application of simple devices which will allow to close such doors from I any floor in case these, or those of the intermittent floors, have been left open through negligence or forgetfulness.

The contrivances forming the object of the present invention are the product of the necessi- 10 ty created through practice in the face of the daily trouble caused through the negligence of the elevator passengers proper, foras is well known-it is a common thing in passengers using them to abandon them with the doors remaining l6 open, be it through negligence or on account'of haste, which, undoubtedly, brings about serious trouble for the others since the operation of the elevator is paralyzed as long as the position of the doors is not brought back to normal.

For this reason, the success and a ready reception of the improvements referred to may be forecast since they will, without complicating the mechanism of the whole, eliminate these troubles ,by ample advantages in every sense, due to the fact that a cooperative engaging mechanism is concerned which, combining the car door with the floor doors, will insure that the operation of one will respond to the other and by means of a ,device governing the closure of all doors, which may be operated from any floor so as to immediately normalize, in case of emergency, the position of the doors with the object in view of leav-' ing the elevator in proper condition for operation. Thus, this simple device insures, as will beseen hereafter, the closure of the carand similar doors derstood and put into practice readily, the same is illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which: I

Fig. 1 is an elevational view of one of the intermittent fioor doors provided with the improved operator in accordance with the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a partial plan view of theintermittent floor door and of the car door, showing how the operator mechanism causes the simultaneous closure of both doors;

Fig. 3 is a partial front view of the slide which brings about the simultaneous closing of both doors;

Fig. 4 is a partial detail in perspective showing how the improved device is applied in the case of the car door being of the swinging or sliding type, and the intermittent floor door an ordinary one; Fig. 5 is a detail plan view or" the device shown in Fig. l in the position corresponding to the two doors being closed; 7

Fig. 6 is another detail in schematic and plan view, showing both doors in intermediate opening position;

Fig. 7 is a front elevational view, showing the installation or" a car the operator device or" which In the embodiment shown in Figs. 7 to 9, 1 is the elevator car proper which, mounted on rails 2 and duly operated, goes up and down through a row of floors the access doors 3 of which may be of the folding, sliding or ordinary type, such doors coinciding with the car door 4 which is also a folding or sliding door.

Now, in order to attain the objects in view, a stop cam 5 is applied to-the car door 4 which, preferably fixed on the first rod of said door, is so arranged that it will register with the'stop' pin 6 applied to the doors 3 of each floor so that the car, in passing and stopping at each floor, will engage its cam 5 with stop 6 which, owing to their disposition as will be seen from Figs. 8 and 9, permit that, upon opening the car door 4, the cam 5 acts on the pin 6 so as to cause the floor door'3 to respond and also open (as is shown in Fig. 8), while, on the contrary (upon leaving the car), when closing the floor dodr, the cam 5 acts on the pin 6 thus causing the car door 4 to reciprocately respond to that of the floor door (see Fig. 9).

This arrangement is beneficious for the passengers, but this is not all that is desired, since, as has been said, the mission of the improvements is to control the closure of the doors from any floor at which a person may want to make use of the car. To this end, the door 3 of each floor is equipped with a lever arrangement 7 of the type used in certain elevators, to the-action 'last in using it left the doors open, an individual who wants to ascend or descend from another of which the door responds opening up or closing itself so that, by means of any mechanism or apparatus which starts the lever arrangement '7, the closure of the doors controlled from any floor can be operated; this result is graphically shown by the apparatus represented in Fig. 7 which comprises a pulley 8 arranged at the upper parton the last floor and mounted on shaft 9; around this pulley a cable or chain 10 is trailed which, suspending vertically through all the floors, in'the'lower part trails around another pulley 11 arranged in the base part of the building. At an intermediate point of the cable 10, acounter-weight 12 of convenient size is fixed. At each floor, said cable 10 has a branch 13 which ends in a-ring 14 or any other suitable element so that it may be pulled with a view to somewhat lower the part of the cable which may displace itself vertically through the rotation of the pulleys 8 and 11.

At the same time, from every floor, another cable 15 branches off from said cable 10 and which receives the extreme of the lever arrangement 7 controlling the operationof the'door3, everything being so arranged that, upon pulling at any of the rings 14, the cable 10 which tightens the string 15 of every floor will descend thus obliging, by means of the lever arrangement 7, the door 3 of each floor to close (provided it be open) and, as it might be likely for the car door 4 having incidentally remained open too, with the action of closing the door 3, the closure of the car door will be also obtained due to same being connected, as has been said, to the cam and pin arrangement 5 and 6.

The operation of this contrivance is realized as follows:

Supposing that the lift be stopped atone of the floors and that the passenger-who was the '4 of the car which is open thus putting. said elevator in normal operating shape when itis calledfor from the .floor on which the person is located who operated the device which will automatically turn back into its position, and thus the cable 10 will move into its normal position so that the strings 15 of each door may slacken allowing of the doors'being opened for the ascension and descension of passengers.

The varying construction shown in'Figs. 1 to 6 is specially characterized by the form of operation of thelever arrangement, and contemplates the likelihood of adapting the mechanism to the case of the intermittent floor doors being of the ordinary type.

In this case, in the space between the two doors, a rail 16 is arranged along which a. slide 1'7 is freel'yrunning' from which inner side a.

pin extension 18 is mounted and so arranged that said pin may remain between the leaves of the cam 5'which, as has been said, is applied to the car door 4. Thereby, said car'in passing and stopping at each floor, shackles its cam 5 with -the pin 18 of the slide, which =wm permit 'as' of the mechanism are secured.

The slide 17, further to exerting its action on the car door .4 by means of the cam 5 and the pin 18, simultaneously operates the door 3 of the different intermittent floors, by means of a mechanism which will vary with regard to the door being of the sliding,.folding or ordinary type.

In the first case, that is, if the door were of the sliding or folding type, as is shown in Figs. 1 and 2, on each of the doors corresponding to the difierent floors, a cam 21, either simple or double, is arranged which is also preferably secured to the first rod of such doors and so arranged as to register, analogously to what has been explained when dwelling on the car door 4, with the pin 22 which is mounted on the previous face of said slide, as is shown in the plan detail of Fig. 2. If a double cam is concerned, as in the case shown, it will be seen that, upon opening the car door 4, the earn 5 bears on the pin 18 which causes the slide to run along the rail 16,

' but the opposite extension-22 of said slide will, in

turn, bear on'the inner sheaf (a) of cam 21 'obliging the floor door 3 to open simultaneously with the first one.

Analogously, when an individual gets out of the elevator and closes the fioor door, the sheaf (a) of the cam 21 bears against the extension 22 of the slide which, by means of its counter-extension 18, will bear against the cam 5 of the lift door 4 which will, thus, close simultaneously with that of the floor. Nevertheless, while the employment of a double cam on the floor door permits to simultaneously open and close both doors, it may be useful, in certain cases such as when heavy doors are con-' cerned, to eliminate the sheaf (a) of said cam whereby the aperture and closure of both doors will be eifected independently; it should be taken into account that the essential aim of the device doesnot lie in manually operating the doors but in the contrivance which allows of simultaneously closing both doors from any of the floors from which an individual wants to call the lift. For this reason, it will be clearly understood that, upon pulling at the ring l4 or any other suit able element located'at the end of the rope'or string 13 which branches off from the cable 10,

'the" descent of such cable is provoked which, by

the. medium of its butt 20, pushes the upper sheaf of the lever arrangement '7 downwardly whereby the slide 17 is displaced along therail 16. Said slide, by means of its lateral extensions 18 and 22, will bear on the cams 5 and 21 of the doors 4 and 3 thus provoking the simultaneous closure ofboth doors which through thought lessness may have been left open. Owing to the fact that a similar branch-off is arranged at every floor to the cable 13 already mentioned, all of the doors can readily be controlled from any floor.

The variation shown in Figs. 4 to 6 is applied In this case, the operation of the car door 4 by the slide 17 may be effected by a mechanism analogous to that described for the previous system while the simultaneous movement of closing the floor door 3 may be operated by a suitable mechanism such as has been shown by way of example only in the Figs. 4, 5 and 6 mentioned.

As will be seen, the intermittent fioor door 3 is, in this case, provided with a rod 23 arranged at a convenient position from the end of which a cable 24 extends which passes through the throat of a pulley 25 mounted on a fixed part of the support. The free end of said cable terminates in the form of a jointed cam or ring which freely turns the vertical cable 10 and which may be operated by fixed pins analogous to those shown at 20 of Fig. l.

Hereby, upon pulling said cable 10 downwardly, it will actuate, by means of the lever arrangement 7, the closure of the lift door 4, the same as has been specified in the foregoing case, but, simultaneously with this movement, the pins 20 will tighten the cable 24 provoking the closure of the access door 3, as is shown by dotted lines in Fig. 6.

As has been pointed out, the apparatus which, from any floor, controls the play of the doors 3, may vary in nature since it may be of an electric, pneumatic, etc., character provided always that, replying to the action of any passenger, it put the lever arrangement 7 going so they can fulfill their duty. The same may be said of the pins, since the cam 5, instead of being simple, may be a double one so as to have the pin engage between the two pieces, thus synchronizing in every sense the play of the car doors and that of the floor doors.

Likewise, the device controlling the operation of the ordinary type doors shown in Figs. 4 to 6, may vary between different types, the mecha nism described and shown being an example only, without detaching itself from the essential object of the present improvements and. which are based on a novel form of application of the operator mechanism of the doors in such a way as to have such mechanism simultaneously actuate the two of said doors.

The operation in the manner just described is quite obvious and does not need any further explanation for those familiar with the art.

It is evident various construction and detail modifications may be introduced without parting from the scope of the present invention which is clearly determined in the appended claiming clauses.

Having now fully described and ascertained the nature of my present invention and in what manner the same is to be carried into practice, I declare that what I claim is:-

1. In operators for elevators in combination, a car including a door, a plurality of floor doors, cooperative engaging means on the car door and floor doors, said engaging means acting to open and close each fioor door upon the actuation of the car door when the latter is arranged adjacent the desired floor door and in a position corresponding to the position of the floor door, and additional means manually operable from any fioor for closing all of the doors including the car door due to its connection to one of the floor doors.

2. An arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the engaging means includes a pin on the car door projecting toward the floor doors, a pair of cam-like members arranged in spaced relation on the outermost part of each of the floor doors adapted to be positioned on opposite sides of the pin when the'car moves opposite the floor door and when both doors are in a closed position so that an opening of the car door will cause an opening of the floor door.

3. An arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the additional means includes an endless cable arranged vertically with one lay arranged near each floor door, a lever arrangement connected with each floor door for extending the doors to a closed position, a branch cable leading from one lay of the endless cable to the lever arrangement so that a pull on said branch cable will actuate said lever arrangement to close the door and other independent branch cables leading from the same lay of the endless cable and positioned adjacent each floor door and adapted to be pulled by the person desiring to enter the elevator so as to ensure of the closing of all of the floor doors, and counterbalancing means on the endless cable.

4. An arrangement as claimed in claim 1, wherein the additional means includes an endless cable arranged vertically with respect to all of the floor doors, a lever arrangement connected to each floor door and operably connected with the endless cable so that a pull on the latter will effect a closing of the floor door, separate flexible pulling members connected with the endless cable and positioned adjacent each floor door so as to be operable by the person desiring to enter the elevator for first effecting closure of all of the floor doors, and counterbalancing means on the cable for returning the same to normal position.

JosE' MANUEL LEON. 

